Day: September 3, 2010

At the time Sen. Reid made this comment, President Bush had been pursuing a failed, stay-the-course strategy that had cost thousands of American lives and billions of taxpayer dollars. Iraq appeared to be on the verge of a sectarian civil war. He was simply pointing out what our military leaders, including Gen. Petraeus, had been saying for months: that we could not win by staying the course; the war needed to be won diplomatically, politically, and economically. Sen. Reid and his colleagues were successful in forcing President Bush to finally abandon his failed approach and refocus on political reconciliation. This is what ultimately paved the way for the Iraqi government to take greater responsibility for Iraq’s future. Sen. Reid’s comments were directed at President Bush and his following of misguided policymakers, not at the heroic troops who continue to serve our country with incredible courage.

And he’s not the only one trying to absurdly take credit for a mission that he not only did not support, but also declared a failure.

As my co-blogger so astutely noted earlier, it is absolutely shameful that the cut and runners both in this administration and Congress will not give President Bush even a sliver of credit for not abandoning Iraq when the calls were growing for a hasty exit, and when the “failure” declarations were piling up – primarily on the left side of the aisle. But you can best believe that I know, conservatives know, and our military and their families know where Iraq would be if we had listened to the Murthas, Pelosis, Reids, Bidens, and Obamas of this country.

And Al Qaeda knows, too.

For the left to try to spin the fragile success taking place in Iraq as a “win” for their side truly will go down in history as one of the biggest attempted political con jobs of all time. Then again, we shouldn’t be too surprised that Democrats would be so desperate to look “tough on terror” that they would try to hijack a victory that really belongs to others who stood tall and firm while these same leftists were busy waving the surrender flag and calling the Commander in Chief a “liar,’ and our courageous troops “murderers” and “torturers.” It’s been a long time since liberals have been on the winning side of any war – Iraq included.

At Power Line, Paul Mirengoff quotes a letter from a reader about President Obama’s refusal to give President Bush the credit he deserves for the Iraq surge, which turned a deteriorating war effort there into victory. I want to republish a portion below, because it nearly perfectly summarizes my contempt for the national Democrats and their leftist allies for their conduct during the Iraq campaign:

I will never forget or forgive the way the left behaved during this episode. For those who voted against the war (the majority of Democratic representatives and a minority of Democratic senators), I can at least credit them with consistency. But for those whose opposition came only after public opinion had shifted, I have nothing but contempt.

The antiwar wave did not arise spontaneously, but was the conscious effort of the left, including the Democrats, and for most, was opportunistic. They sacrificed the national interest in order to gain political advantage. Nothing is easier than building opposition to a war. Wars are appalling, whether necessary or morally justifiable. They create death and mayhem, last longer than most people anticipate, and are usually plagued by unanticipated difficulties and setbacks.

The left/liberal/Democrats took full advantage of all of these inherent difficulties in prosecuting a war. They cynically, opportunistically, and dishonestly carried out a campaign to undermine support for the war, attacking President Bush’s honesty and motives in pursuing the war, and vilifying anyone, in fact, who continued to support the war.

The full page ad taken out by MoveOn.org during General Petraeus’ appearance before Congress captures the spirit of this campaign perfectly. It is a miracle that President Bush, General Petraeus, and the US military perservered in the face of this vicious campaign of vilification and brought us to the point at which we now find ourselves. How can the left behave this way? Well, it helps to remember that many Democrats are internationalists anyway, and don’t really care much about US national interests. For a “citizen of the world,” patriotism is an anachronism, something we need to overcome.

(Emphasis added.)

The only thing missing is a mention of how the Democrats are just aping their political ancestors, the Copperheads.

And, no, I am not saying all criticism in time of war is illegitimate or a betrayal. One can criticize the reasons for going to war when debating whether to authorize it; one can criticize its conduct during a war, for that’s an important part of civilian audit of the military in a constitutional republic; one can even criticize continuing a war if one feels there is no national interest in continuing it.

But, to work against one’s own nation’s war interests, for example by proclaiming defeat before the issue is even resolved, and effectively give aid to the enemy in order to gain a cheap, short-term electoral advantage is despicable and swinish. The Democrats and their allies deserve to be sent into the electoral wilderness for a generation for their appalling ignobility, alone.

—– And in a sign of ultimate frustration, the Obama administration is pulling the old Clinton triangulation move by turning to the right on the issue of tax cuts for businesses … just two months before the Nov. election. You know this has to be particularly painful for both the President and his handlers who believe that the Socialistic policies they’ve forced on the American people over the last near-two years would bring over some converts to their way of thinking.